Christian’s Possession

Donna Leishman’s “Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw” is inspired by real historical facts. Christian, daughter of John Shaw (Land of Bargarran, Erskine ), as Leishman explains somewhere, has fallen victim to what is one of the most notorious cases of demonic possession in Scotland. She points out that Christian’s case implicated “local people” as her “tormentors.” Among them seven, three men and four women, were executed to death in Gallow Green in Paisley on charges of witchcraft. Soon after these events took place however people realized that they had “overreacted to nothing more than the psychotic fantasies of a young girl.”

On the whole, the historical facts are fused with suggestiveness. This leaves one wondering on the inherent conceptual structure of the text. In a sense, its linearity is displaced, thus the reader/viewer has to know something about the story before going through the sophisticated unfolding of the text. This may not be the case with “RedRidinghood” (Leishman’s Master thesis) as the audience is well-acquainted with the story.

The elegant and hand-made images seem unwilling to let go of established referents. As one progresses through the text though, s/he is forced to admit that they build together an abstract concept of temporality, capable of very specific applications to historical circumstances. In a way, this shifts the focus from trying to understand what the text is about into testing the audience’s active involvement and meditating on his/her understanding of the real.